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Your most used SPECIAL programs
cranioscopical:
Speaking of "special", I see that Liquid Story Binder (mentioned somewhere above) is discounted on Bits Du Jour for today only.
$15.95 instead of $49.95
http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/liquid-story-binder/
sajman99:
If most used is the primary criteria, then I am compelled to mention the free (for private use) and portable RIOT (aka Radical Image Optimization Tool).
Perhaps old news to some, but I only recently discovered this tool which has saved me many hours processing images. One phrase explains it best: "compress to size". Factor in batch processing and manual control of chroma subsampling and we have a winner. :-*
RIOT is available as a standalone and/or plugin for Gimp, IrfanView, and XnView.
WARNING: As mentioned, I have the portable version of RIOT. The installer version now includes OpenCandy.
http://luci.criosweb.ro/riot/
Curt:
thanks for telling, sajman99. I always use IrfanView for downsizing my pictures, but never for a second did I stop to wonder if it was done by IrfanView itself or by a plugin. RIOT is installed (comes with the default plugin's exe), but do you know if I have to activate it, (in some hidden way), or is the resizing per defintion done by RIOT?
:tellme:
rjbull:
Is IrfanView still shipping (well, downloading) with an old version of RIOT, so that you have to go to the RIOT site and download the current one from there and install over it, or is it now up to date?
sajman99:
Hi Curt. In the case of the RIOT plugin for XnView (which I use), I click on an image, then go to Tools/Plugin/RIOT to activate RIOT. It displays as a large dual pane window with "Initial image" on the left and "Optimized image" on the right.
Not sure about Irfanview-- I would assume it's the same situation where RIOT steps up to the plate (ie. RIOT is visible). Hopefully another Irfanview user can indicate if it works differently.
btw I use RIOT primarily for batch compressing jpeg to size. It saves a ton of time, and usually the optimized images aren't noticeably different from the initial images. Of course, if you get carried away with too much compression the images will have noticeable artifacts. But at least you can preview to see how badly an image will deteriorate.
FWIW I prefer to use FastStone Photo Resizer (which is also a component of FastStone Image Viewer) for resizing because it has a "Conversion Preview" which allows me to have a sneak peek at the exact size prior to the actual resizing.
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